Graphics people--help with importing into Word please

I am finishing up my dissertation right now, and I am creating a fingering chart for the bassoon. I have created my fingering examples as TIFFs in Fireworks, along with EPS files of the notes they belong to from Finale. I have made all of the graphics, and I need to get them into Word, because that is the format the school wants the paper. My problem is, is that when I import them into word, my graphics looked blurred. In Fireworks, they look nice and clear, but after importing them, they are not. Can anyone help me with this?

Originally posted by primalman When you import graphics - be they TIFFs, EPS, JPEG, whatever - into layout, you are looking at a PREVIEW of the file image, not the actual image. Thus, they look blurred.

Have you printed it out? The print should look fine.

Your images are still at the rez you speced in your graphics programs.

Click to expand...

I haven't tried printing it yet. So, you think that it'll look better once printed? I'll give that a shot too.

But the thing that most people mess up is that they resize the images, changing the aspect ratio, etc. to uneven values and that can cause problems. That's why I was say just make sure you have the right size from the start and you should be ok.

They print fuzzy and out of focus looking. The EPS files are all blown up out of proportion, and the Fireworks files are fuzzy.

I thin kpart of the problem is that when I put the image files into Word, it doesn't automatically shown them at the size of the file that I created them at, but rather as a much smaller version that I have to blow up with the Word tools. Is there a setting I need to change, or is there a better way to save those files?

Thanks a bunch! The dissertation is now finidhed except for these problems!

To get sharp gifs from Fireworks you need to produce an image at printable resolution and avoid anti-aliasing.

Open your tiff in Fireworks, (don't place it in an existing document).

Go to menu Modify>Image Size and set the print size of the image to your dimensions in cm or inches, and set a resolution of no less than 300 Pixels/inch and no greater than 600 pixels/inch.

Set resample image menu to "Nearest Neighbor" and click OK.

For this to be successful you should be downsizing the file size of your image not enlarging it. (ie The number of pixels overall shouldn't increase).

Use the slice tool to select the part of the image you wish to export and set the Optimize(slice) setting to Gif and the number of colors to 2.

Then file>export>selected slice and you're done.

When you import your picture into word it will most likely come in at a larger dimension. (Word imports pictures at screen pixel resolution - 72dpi, and not by the dimensions/resolution specified in the saved image). You will need to re-scale by shift(constrain)>dragging the resize handle so that your image is back to the dimension you originally specified.

Your image will now have enough resolution to print sharply. Also by avoiding anti-aliasing when re-scaling and saving with only 2 colors, the fuzzy edges aren't created. (Unless you have anti-aliased images to begin with).

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